


Please Don't Knock Over My Heart

by milou407



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Kisses, M/M, Past Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Saying I Love You, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-18
Updated: 2016-04-18
Packaged: 2018-06-03 01:32:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6591244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/milou407/pseuds/milou407
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The thing is, Tony never thought it was something that would ever be said to him. It hadn’t ever before, so he figured he was never going to hear those specific words said for him only. There had been plenty of opportunities, with his parents, or Rhodey, or Pepper. Somehow, he decided, the universe had mandated that Tony Stark wasn’t someone to love. </p>
<p>So it’s really not surprising that the first time Steve says “I love you” to him, he falls over.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Please Don't Knock Over My Heart

**Author's Note:**

> This started as a headcanon with Duke307, and evolved into 3k+ words of fluff and Tony. Title is from 'Heart is Full' by Miike Snow. Enjoy!

The thing is, Tony never thought it was something that would ever be said to him. It hadn’t ever before, so he figured he was never going to hear those specific words said for him only. There had been plenty of opportunities, with his parents, or Rhodey, or Pepper. Somehow, he decided, the universe had mandated that Tony Stark wasn’t someone to love. 

So it’s really not surprising that the first time Steve says “I love you” to him, he falls over. 

\---------

He can’t remember his mom at all, so of course he wouldn’t remember if she told him she loved him. She died in a car accident when he was barely one, and from the way he acted, Howard probably wished Tony had gone with her. 

To say Howard wasn’t an involved parent was a massive understatement. He barely looked at Tony, much less professed any sort of affection for him. Even when he was a child, Howard tried to hold him to an impossible set of standards, and Tony always fell short. The nannies hired to handle him were nice, but never really understood Tony or his quicksilver mind, and as a result did their job and nothing more. He was kept in the manor and away from the general population of children, because he was still the son of Howard Stark and it wouldn’t be right for him to interact with normal children. So yes, Tony grew up without people around him to coddle him. But everyone has to grow up sometimes, he just happened to be an early bloomer. 

(It was fine, he will tell himself later, because he didn’t want to interact with the masses anyway. And really, who needs a drunk for a father, he’ll say as he pours a drink.)

\--------

College is everything you’d expect, being a sixteen-year-old in an adult’s world. He fights too hard to be recognized, he speaks too loud to make sure he’s heard, and while he’s a genius in the laboratory, he gets lost in trying to navigate the social parts of the college experience. Tony tries too hard to impress, tries to be a part of everything, and only ends up hunched over the toilet in someone’s apartment with another guy he doesn’t know patting his back.

James Rhodes, once he puts a name to the comforting back rub, is the first person who ends up sticking around. He even sticks around to endure the abuse of a massively hungover Tony, begging for coffee and death by turn. He sticks around because he can remember how it felt to be the new kid, and every time he looks at Tony he can see himself, bouncing around from school to school as a military brat. He can remember how lonely it is to have no one in your corner, and knows how easily lost and lonely people can self-destruct. So James stays, awkwardly declines the offer of a thank you blowjob from this probably still drunk kid, (and decides not to think too hard about why a kid only sixteen offers blowjobs so easily) and earns himself a place by Tony Stark, current wunderkind and future genius.

Despite numerous attempts to drive him away, and plenty of situations where walking away would have been the easiest option, James becomes Rhodey and earns his title of Best Friend. Tony learns how to interact with someone who doesn’t want his money, and Rhodey finds stability in the one person he never expected would have it. Tony may be wild, but he is a constant; anytime Rhodey asks, he’s there. They’re there for each other, and it’s really that simple. Until it’s not.

By the time Rhodey ships off for his first tour, Tony has got his feet under him, is finishing up his degree, and is ready to get into the family business. They’re both very different from who they were when they first met, but when they shake hands before Rhodey leaves, all he can see is the scared teenager who was so alone and so frightened. Rhodey abandons the handshake and pulls Tony against him, mumbling something about taking care of himself before he hurries into the car.

So Tony stands at the curb alone, and watches the first person who cared about him leave. (He’ll see him again, he knows. There won’t ever be another moment like that one, though, where he could have said it, and not regretted it after. He knows that too.)

\------

Pepper enters his life at the best possible time, which also happens to be the low point of his entire life.

Obadiah is actually the one who hires her, in a startling twist. She’s the last in a very long line of personal assistants. The last one left after only three weeks in his fabulous company. (In all honesty, he probably could have refrained from offering her a threesome with him and the lovely girl he had brought home from a gala.) From the first, Pepper is ruthless efficiency and fiery determination wrapped in a perfectly poised and professional package. She takes absolutely none of his shit, and is even good at deflecting the people he really can’t stand. He might be a little bit in love.

She won’t go out with him, which is definitely a smart move on her part. Everyone’s read the stories in the tabloids about Tony Stark and his revolving door of different beautiful women (and men, but those stories tend to stay quiet, paid off by Obie). No rational woman would willingly enter into a relationship with a man with those kinds of extracurricular activities. To be fair, Tony probably wouldn’t even date himself at this point. 

But he tries. God, does he try. At some point, it stops being about the fact that she said no. It starts being more of an honest question after Afghanistan. After he was locked in a cave and had to fight his way out. After Rhodey called him and basically told him to grow the fuck up (and wow, he thought nothing could hurt as much as literally having his chest ripped open, but that came pretty close). After it turned out Obie (who thought Tony was valuable, even if he never liked him) was using him for the only thing keeping him alive.   
After Tony has to basically reevaluate his entire fucking life, and figured out that Pepper was the only good thing he had left from his life before Iron Man. 

So yeah, Pepper is one of the main reasons he gets his shit together. Stark Industries becomes a leader in the clean energy sector, Tony promotes Pepper because he knows she wouldn’t want to date her boss (and this way he gets to date his boss which is _hot_ ), and he starts paying attention. He pays attention when she really needs him to sign things, even though he’s the lowly head of R&D now. He pays attention when she finally lets him take her out, and she talks about art all the way through the Guggenheim. (The first time he kisses her tastes like strawberries and sunshine.)

He gives her all the focus he can, and she understands that it’s not in his nature to be single-minded. He has to go in ten different directions at once, and she completely gets it. She understands, and he tries, and they work. She understands him like no one ever has, mostly because after Rhodey left, no one ever tried. He knows he’s so lucky to have found someone to accept him, mad genius as he is.

It’s Iron Man she can’t accept. 

Especially once Captain America comes back, Thor arrives, and the Avengers band together, Pepper can’t understand why he can’t let someone else step in. She asks him, begs him even, to take a backseat. Give Rhodey a suit, or give SHIELD Iron Man. He tries to explain that he can’t give up the suit, it’s a part of him as much as the reactor is. That he can’t give Rhodey a suit, not because he doesn’t trust him with it, but because he doesn’t trust the Army to use him as a weapon, not a hero. 

He can’t quite articulate the feeling that the burning, exploding towns gave him, or the buildings falling around him while he flew with aliens. He can’t tell her how every time he helps his teammate or saves an innocent, he hates himself just that much less.

He can’t tell her why he’s choosing the suit over her, but she knows. Pepper always understands.

So he watches her walk out the door, and has the sinking realization that he never told her. He never told Pepper that making her smile made him feel like he was flying, or how when she looked at him with her eyes soft and warm, he felt like he was home for the first time in so long. He never got to tell her that he loved her, and never had the chance to hear it in return.

But he has a job to do, he’s a superhero for god’s sake. So Tony goes on. 

\-----

Having a team is both better and worse than he thought it would be.

The best part is just not being _alone_ anymore. Is it awkward? Fuck yeah. The first three months are basically just them trying not to kill each other and learning to live together in the Tower, so of course it’s going to be awkward. But once they fit, it becomes a comfortable, pseudo-family unit. No one expected it, but they all (secretly) love it.

Bruce is a god-send, his science bro, the person he can hide in the lab with for hours. Physics and engineering go together quite well, and Bruce is the first new roomie he’s really comfortable around. Giant green rage monster and all. They get along even better once Bruce stops trying to convince him to do yoga and drink kale smoothies and Tony stops poking Bruce with random sharp objects.

Clint and Natasha still scare the shit out of him. But. In a good way.

They seem to understand the part of him that’s still searching for redemption. Clint is good at distracting him, distracting the both of them really, and dragging him out of the lab when it’s really been too long. He comes up with ridiculous specifications for arrows and outrageous robots he suddenly needs. It lets Tony blow stuff up in the name of progress, so he’s a keeper.

Natasha always seems to find him when he’s trying to be small and quiet. The times when he can’t sleep for seeing Yinsen, the countless people hurt by his company’s weapons, even Pepper, all hurt and bleeding behind his eyelids. She sits with him quietly and sometimes breaks out the good vodka. Sometimes, though, it’s just cocoa.

Thor, when he comes back, is larger than life in every way. (And since he seems to have an aversion to clothes, Tony does mean _every_ way) He’s loud, boisterous, basically a golden retriever in human form. But he tries to help however he can, and he’s always the first to rush into a fight. The amount of hits he’s taken for all of them is ridiculous, and Tony would offer to upgrade his armor in thanks if he didn’t think it would grievously offend him.

But, Steve. Steve is something special.

At the beginning it was hard to separate the man from the image, which led to the fighting like mad and spitting barbs meant to wound, Tony punishing Steve for the standards his father set for him and Steve still too raw from losing his whole world to even consider reaching out. The fighting got to be so constant that they were locked in the pantry by Natasha with instructions to JARVIS not to let them out until they talked through their shit. After The Pantry Incident, things got better. It wasn’t easy, but through training together, and awkward nightmare talks at four in the morning when they both “just happened to be up”, they grew closer than anyone ever thought they would. 

It starts turning into something bigger once they start being in each other’s spaces more. 

To put it simply, Steve is the one Tony feels most comfortable around. Steve is the only one who will venture into the workshop for long periods of time, just enjoying the relative silence of Tony tinkering with the armor or new upgrades for various projects and sketching or reading. He is also usually the one to drag Tony to “family dinners”, or if they aren’t eating together, will bring him food to the workshop or drag him out to some new place he just has to try. Tony can’t pinpoint the exact moment he and Steve started dating, but he knows he won’t ever forget their first kiss.

They’re sitting in Central Park on a gorgeous summer day, surrounded by families also enjoying the lovely weather and pretending not to recognize them. Steve was sitting on the blanket with Tony reclining next to him, balling up pieces of paper napkin and throwing them so they got caught in Tony’s hair. Tony had been rambling about something and Steve was laughing at something he said, silhouetted against the afternoon sun. He looked so happy and bright, so different than the man who had come out of the ice, and Tony was so proud of him. So proud that he was strong enough to admit that he was hurting, that he sought out help from his teammates, and that he had finally accepted that even though they were gone, his people and his time would always be a part of him. 

So Tony levered himself up, and slowly, so achingly slowly to give him time to turn away, pressed his lips against Steve’s. Steve gasped against his mouth and then pressed back, keeping the kiss innocent but making sure Tony knew that he was enjoying it too. When he pulled back, Steve beamed at him, all golden in the sun and absolutely, breathtakingly beautiful. 

It’s four months later that Tony finds himself falling backwards over the back of the couch.

Things between the two of them have been good. _Really_ good, even. Yeah, they fight, but honestly, what couple doesn’t? Steve doesn’t think he should be spending over 36 hours in the workshop, Tony sometimes chafes under Steve’s possessiveness. 

(Don’t get him wrong, sometimes he loves it. He loves that Steve cares about him enough to want everyone to know he belongs to Steve. But when he needs to charm fellow business people to ensure that his patents go through, or to make sure a deal goes the way he wants it to, he doesn’t need his hot boyfriend standing and glaring at everyone with a hand around his waist.)

Now, they’re standing in the kitchen and living area, Tony leaning against the couch and talking at Steve which Steve makes them sandwiches. Tony is talking about all the initiatives that Stark Industries spearheads when he clears his throat and stands up straighter.

“Hey, so I took care of the thing you wanted. The scholarship thingie.”

Steve turns and squints at him in confusion, “What are you talking about? What scholarship?”

“You were upset last week, ‘cause it was Bucky’s birthday? You get all quiet and more tactile than usual when you’re sad and thinking about the skinny Steve years. But you said you missed him, and you wished he was remembered by more people. Said that he was a war hero too, and that he should be remembered as much as you are. So I looked into it, and it’s actually really easy to set up scholarships, you just need a fund and a name. Pepper set it up, took care of the paperwork.” Tony forces his hands to stop flying around, they always become more expressive when he got nervous. “And I can undo it if you want, but it’s kind of a late birthday present to Bucky. The James Buchanan Barnes Memorial Scholarship.”

By this point, Steve has turned fully to face him, a look of slight confusion and wonder on his face, “A memorial scholarship?”

“Yeah, a full ride. A kid a year from a low income home will get to go to college for free. I know you didn’t exactly as for it, but I thought it was a good idea, you always talked about how he would have wanted to go to college if it hadn’t been, you know, the Depression. And this way, he will always be remembered by the people he helped. And I know you don’t like me spending money on you, but I thought this might be an exception. You can raise money for it, if you want, but if not it’ll be fully funded through Stark Industries.” Steve was still staring at him, and he honestly couldn’t identify the emotion on his face. “Um, Steve? Can you tell me if this is ok? I can’t tell if I fucked up or not. I did it to make you less sad. If it makes you upset, or if it was presumptuous or something I can undo it. Or, I think I can. Pepper can, anyway.”

“No, stop, it’s- it’s amazing. Tony, God, thank you. Thank you so much.” Steve strode towards him and kissed him sweetly, holding his face between his big hands. Tony grasped at his shirt with one hand, steadying himself against the couch with the other. 

Steve pulled back and looked at him, then said, “You’re so perceptive and thoughtful. Thank you, it means so much to me,” and he kissed him on the forehead before saying,

“I love you.”

Which is when Tony falls over the back of the couch. 

He lays there for a few moments, trying to process what Steve just said. He knew they were getting closer, more comfortable in the relationship and with each other, but he hadn’t realized they had hit the “I love you” point. Of course he loves Steve, how can you _not_ love Steve? (He’s pretty sure there are some supervillains who love Steve. Loki keeps giving him the side-eye.)

He just hadn’t realized that Steve felt the same way. That Steve loved him.

Oh. Steve _loves_ him.

Just like that, all the confusion is gone. In its place, sitting brightly in his chest, is euphoria, a feeling he’s never felt anything like before. He is loved, someone loves him and it’s Steve, Captain _fucking_ America loves him, and he feels like he’s flying. It’s like that first time flying in the suit, the world fading below him as he goes ever higher.

Steve pokes his head over the back of the couch, looking baffled and a touch amused. “Tony? Babe, are you alright?”

And even better, it’s not just that he’s loved; he’s loved by _Steve_. Steve, with his morning bedhead and the way he can never remember to throw his socks in the laundry basket. Steve, who always takes his leftovers home, who never fails to try to make the little kids smile when they’re at the next table over in restaurants. The man who can memorize a map in less than ten seconds, but took three months to use the toaster out of pure stubbornness. 

Tony smiles up at him, and Steve beams back because he always does when Tony smiles at him. Tony reaches up and tugs at his shirt, so Steve climbs over the back of the couch and settles on top of him, bracing himself on his arms. 

“Hi.”

“Hi yourself,” Steve kisses the tip of his nose, “Are you alright? I hope I didn’t make you uncomfortable.”

“No, it’s all fine. Actually,” Tony closes his eyes briefly, “Can you say it again?”

“Yeah?” Steve’s eyes light up when Tony nods, “I love you.”

Tony hides his face in Steve’s neck as he blushes. “No one’s ever said that before.”

“What?” Steve pulls back and looks offended at the very thought. “No one?”

“Um. No? I mean, I was kind of a bratty kid, and I fucked things up with Pepper before we ever got to that point, so it just never… came up?”

Steve hums, and Tony can feel it vibrating his chest, making him wiggle. 

“What’s that noise for?”

“Well,” Steve starts kissing his mouth, then moves down his jaw and neck, interspersing his words with kisses. “Since I’m the first person ever, I guess I’ll just have to spend the rest of my life making up for the deficiency.” He sighs dramatically, “I suppose I have to tell you I love you every day for, oh, about thirty or forty years to make up for it.”

“Oh really? That long?”

“Mhm. Possibly even longer, to make up for the bad thoughts I’m having right now.”

“What kind of–“ Tony breaks off to gasp as Steve nips at his collarbone where his shirt has become mysteriously unbuttoned. “What kind of bad thoughts?”

“Well, probably not the kind you want. Those too, of course. But mainly, I wish I had punched Howard when I had the chance.”

“I wish you had too, that would have made for a hell of a – _oh!_ ” And now Steve has moved his mouth to his chest, which he _knows_ Tony loves. Steve is using his nipples against him, the sneaky bastard. He knows how sensitive they are. “Wait, Steve, baby…”

“Yes?” Steve looks up innocently from where he’s kissing down Tony’s stomach.

“I love you too.”

Steve almost _growls_ and surges back up to kiss Tony, all teeth and heat. They stay on the couch, kissing and enjoying the closeness until Clint bursts in with-

“Oh my god, come on you guys. You have bedrooms for this sort of thing, there’s no need to – oh look, sandwiches!”

They both dissolve into giggles, Steve collapsing more onto Tony and burying his face into his neck. Tony can feel where his lips are tracing three words into his skin, over and over again. 

Tony closes his eyes and smiles, perfectly content to be slightly squished into the couch, because he is _loved._

And he loves in return.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are always appreciated! Much love.


End file.
